The term “cable management” describes the art of organizing your computer or home theater wiring in a way that it doesn’t look like a dish of electronic spaghetti.
Computer Cable Management
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5 Gallon Bucket
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Gift Basket
Here’s an idea appropriate for Valentine’s day. Now you can express your affections with a 5 gallon bucket (or crate, whatever.)
The editor at Hoosier Homemade makes these every year for the guys in her life. Read about it and see more pictures on her website.
Gamma Seal Lids
The Problem with Snap Lids
Taking standard snap lids off of 5 gallon buckets is extraordinary difficult. I’ve encountered lids that have taken ten minutes and several rest periods to get off. The trick is actually to pull out on the rim rather than up.
Several inventions have hit your local bucket outlet to deal with this problem, including the bucket opener pictured to the left. It opens buckets in under a second, and saves your fingertips for another day. Check out our bucket wrench article if it suits your fancy.
The Solution: Spinning Lids
For a more permanent solution, here’s the Gamma seal lid. It screws on and comes with its own grips to make screwing and unscrewing easier. Gamma seal lids are much easier to open, yet are just as waterproof as your vanilla bucket.
Gamma seal lids come in two parts, the rim and the center piece. The rim is affixed permanently to the bucket, with help of a rubber mallet. Continue reading
Workout Equipment
We live in the era of gyms, where it’s common to make fun of people for driving ten blocks to spend an hour running in place.
Whether you get your physical activity from working out, walking to the grocery store, or running for your life from a grizzly bear – physicians agree that exercise has enormous benefit to your health.
There’s many ways to use 5 gallon buckets to maintin physical fitness. A full 5 gallon bucket weighs a burly 70 pounds or more so when rigged up right you can be use them for weight training. Some folks build indoor bench presses and squat stands using 5 gallon buckets as a base.
In the Spartan Race in Texas, contestants heave a 5 gallon bucket of gravel up a slope. This photo by Dallas professional photographer Alex Cena shows a woman concentrating intensely on not collapsing into an exhausted heap.
Continue reading
Mop Bucket
Now I’m not exactly a mopping kind of guy, which is why this five gallon idea has been so long in the coming. The last time I mopped a floor was when I moved out of my last apartment, and the next time I mop a floor will be when I move out of this one.
Sometimes I wish all my flooring was concrete so I could just hose it all down when the grime gets out of hand. Concrete flooring can actually be very attractive, like the right-hand photo from Mollroi construction shows.
The mop buckets you’ve probably seen the most are these yellow wheeled contraptions from Rubbermaid. They’re a common sight in malls, fast food restaurants and high schools.
As you no doubt already know, 5 gallons is the most perfect size for a bucket, and most specially-made mop buckets are around that size.
Mopping is made more efficient by adding caster wheels and a mop wringer, like shown in the left-hand image.
We had mop buckets just like this one at the bagel shop I worked at as a teenager, and we’d put our feet in 2 of them and use them to roller skate after closing. Don’t try that yourself, it’s not remotely safe. Continue reading